


Child Endangerment

by Orchidaexa



Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Gen, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, angry matt murdock, wow that's no surprise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23073085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orchidaexa/pseuds/Orchidaexa
Summary: Deadpool picks at a piece of cheese, squeezing it between two leather-clad fingers, turning it to paste. “Spidey swung by Hell’s Kitchen earlier,” he begins, almost nonchalant. Even if Matt couldn’t hear the tone, he’d scent the bitterness to the paprika. “Happened to come across me while I was waiting on a mark.”---Writing this because TellMeNoAgain got some little universe building questions into my head.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Peter Parker, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker & Wade Wilson, Matt Murdock & Wade Wilson
Comments: 22
Kudos: 237





	Child Endangerment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TellMeNoAgain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TellMeNoAgain/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Some of My Best Friends Are Alphas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22536235) by [TellMeNoAgain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TellMeNoAgain/pseuds/TellMeNoAgain). 



Something acrid stinks up the rooftops in Hell’s Kitchen. Matt knows the scent, follows it like a bloodhound to a very sulky Deadpool, who is picking unhappily at a burrito, probably chicken, with a copious amount of hot sauce. He smells of frustration, the scent permeating his strange smell of smoked paprika and gasoline, none of which overpowers the stale scent of blood and gore that clings to his leather suit no matter how freshly washed it is, or the gunpowder from the muzzles of his guns.

Matt won’t tell him, he’s got more tact than that, but he really _really_ can’t stand the other alpha’s stink.

Today, he’s unusually still aside from the way he picks and picks and picks at his food, and there’s another oddity to his scent today. It smells of organic compounds, a chemistry lab, just faintly, underneath the too sterile but urine soaked scent of a jail cell. It takes until Matt crouches beside him for Deadpool to respond at all to Matt, and Matt kind of longs for the fresh salt-sweet sea smell of Foggy, or the soft-edged sweetness of Karen’s maple scent.

“Deadpool,” Matt rasps, cocking his head and turning as if to look at him. Matt’s actually fairly sure Deadpool knows he’s blind, just from the way that the man responds to him, but he’d rather not confirm or deny any suspicions he has.

“Red.” His voice is flat, intonation carefully revealing nothing. If Matt relied on his eyes to see, he might only measure the tension of the shoulders and leave well alone, but this has a greater story behind it.

So Matt, ever the expert at prising open information that might be central to a case, carefully makes himself look smaller, makes himself look almost submissive. An aggressive approach might lead to confrontation, and whilst Deadpool can afford to lose limbs and get stabbed and shot, Matt really can’t. He doesn’t regenerate like Deadpool, who definitely has an advantage on him in the form of katanas and guns and grenade launchers and whatever the hell else that man carries in those multi-dimensional pouches of his. “What happened, Wade?” His voice is closer to his speaking-to-the-witness tone and with little effort; his scent is calming, sweetening, an imitation of omega soothing. _Control the mind, control the body._ It rankles him to have to do this, but keeping Deadpool calm is far more important than giving in to the lashing and howling alpha that curls at the back of his mind.

Deadpool picks at a piece of cheese, squeezing it between two leather-clad fingers, turning it to paste. “Spidey swung by Hell’s Kitchen earlier,” he begins, almost nonchalant. Even if Matt couldn’t hear the tone, he’d scent the bitterness to the paprika. “Happened to come across me while I was waiting on a mark.”

Matt’s come across Deadpool while he has both eyes on his payout before, and Matt knows full well that interrupting Deadpool can lead to an unfortunate lack of life.

“Real scum of the earth, this one, trafficking children, actual _children_ for use in pornos.”

Suddenly, Matt understands that bitter tone even more. For all Deadpool acts like an amoral mercenary, he has certain lines that cannot and should not be crossed. The Punisher would be all over this, and Matt has the half-hearted thought to pass on Karen’s contact to Deadpool. She knows how to contact Frank Castle, and Matt staunchly refuses to ask anything about it, even when Karen comes in the next day scenting something fierce of him.

“I’ll talk to him,” Matt promises, the rasp he’s so carefully cultivated slipping back into his voice, knowing that Deadpool trying to corner the vigilante will just lead to something going horribly wrong.

“He called the cops on me, Red, they threw me in a jail cell and that _fucker_ slipped away.” Matt carefully tries to sweeten his scent again, make it like spun sugar, like glace cherries rather than his usual acrid and burnt charcoaled cherries scent that he puts on specifically to be Daredevil. Deadpool doesn’t seem to be noticing, starting to fly into a rage, but Matt is used to this. He’s not a stable character, says there’s something up with his brain, and sometimes Matt is able to scent the chemicals he’s using to help control it. The voice he used seemed to have grated too hard on Deadpool’s nerves. Adrenaline is starting to flood Matt’s system as he scents the anger, the fierce edge of gasoline, but he holds himself still and careful, refusing to allow his heart rate to spike.

“I’ll talk to him; I’ll keep an eye out for him.” He’s less assertive once more, voice slipping low and soft, taking the gravel out of his tone as he talks. The voice he uses to soothe witnesses, to extract information in his day job, not the one he uses whenever he has to talk to anyone dressed as Daredevil. He’s very careful to make the best impression of omega soothing without tilting his head in submission as possible, and it is working to stop Deadpool from ratcheting up too far. Enough so that Matt can leave without the fear of inviting chase by an alpha losing their mind.

Deadpool nods, and Matt takes off, glad to put such an astringent scent behind him. He glides over rooftop and across balconies and fire escapes until he is sure that Deadpool will no longer follow him.

* * *

It takes only two days before Matt notices Spider-man in Hell’s Kitchen. He smells a little like the chemistry lab scent that Matt noted on Deadpool, the scent seemingly concentrated to his wrists, but also like a bakery fucking _exploded_ on him. He’s young, very clearly incredibly strong, and his heart beats slowly, strongly. Less than a beat every second.

It takes Matt a little by surprise that Spider-man is an omega. Not only an omega but he still has that pup-scent to him, and Matt knows full well that Spider-man has been an active member of the vigilante community for several years. It’s concerning, Spider-man being so young, and with the humming of the tech through the outer layer of his body, Matt has more than a little of a suspicion that Stark is somehow involved.

Despite his desire to address the vigilante as pup, Matt keeps it formal, landing on a roof behind him.

“Spider-man,” he says, squaring his stance up, ready to fight. “We need to talk.”

For what it’s worth, Spider-man whirls around, and Matt can hear an electronic hum from his face. He thinks he also hears a calm woman’s voice identifying Matt as Daredevil.

“Oh, hey, I mean, hi! Double-dee, can I call you that? Yeah? What’s up Double-dee?”

Spider-man sounds young. Too young. It’s hard to wrestle his alpha side under control, when all his mind is screaming at him to protect this one. But Spider-man has made a name for himself, he’s fought alongside the Avengers at some point, and Matt has to be straightforward, get his message across, not send him back to wherever he came from all chastised and sad.

“Stay away from Deadpool and the Punisher. Don’t get them arrested. They’re doing work so you don’t get your hands dirty later, pup.”

Matt hears the stutter and panic of Spider-man’s heart.

“I’m not a _pup_ ,” the boy hisses, “And they’re _killing_ people. They gotta be stopped!”

Matt heaves a sigh. “You still have pup scent,” he explains, tilting his head as he listens carefully to Spider-man’s mounting panic. Huh. Is he not supposed to be able to smell that? Because he can pick out each individual smell, apple pie, vanilla, pineapple, and the overwhelming scent of innocent marshmallow. He could read the last known emotion easily, but he’s much more interested in the now.

Softening his body language, Matt steps clearly beside Spider-man, not towards him, and crouches on the parapet of the building. He turns to his lawyer voice, soft and careful, comforting. “Besides, you know who Deadpool was aiming for the other night? I know you don’t, else you might not have stopped him. Child sex trafficker.”

There it is. There’s a distressed catch to Spider-man’s breathing, there’s stress suddenly pouring into his scent, there’s a stumble in the heartbeat. Matt jumps down to the fire escape below him and heads into the night, leaving Spider-man to think.

* * *

“How long has Spider-man been around, Deadpool?”

Matt thinks Deadpool will know, because Matt hadn’t come across the vigilante in person before, and certainly couldn’t see the videos.

“4 years, thereabouts. Why you askin’, Hornhead?”

Matt taps his index finger against the gravel of this roof. Deadpool scents less like gasoline today, more like the medications he must take. His swords still gleam on his back, and there’s still definitely a grenade launcher somewhere on his person, but he seems less like he’s about to keel over and cry or go into an alpha rage.

“Spider-man’s a pup. 18? 19?”

Deadpool inhales.

“15 maximum is when he started.” Deadpool is extrapolating, eyes staring into nothing. “And he got picked up by Stark to be part of their little crew, ain’t he?”

Matt trails his fingers over rough edges. “Child endangerment.”

Deadpool thinks a bit. “Could you smell him? I figured he was on the young side, his voice, but that ain’t reliable. I couldn’t smell anything, but you might have gotten closer.”

Matt nods, curtly. “Clear as day. If he has scent blockers in that suit, they don’t match up to me.”

There’s probably something of a crooked smile on Deadpool’s face, but Matt can’t tell anyway because mouths are strange when your world is a blur of fire. Aside from that, he also has his leather hood on, covering everything, and it makes the quirks of body language hard to read.

Deadpool rubs his face a bit. “Now I feel weird for starin’ at his ass. Fuck, Stark shouldn’t have put him in that spandex.” There are a few quiet moments, and Matt tries very hard not to judge Deadpool too hard. It’s easy to forget, Matt muses, that not everyone has senses like his, not everyone can smell people through layers that are clearly there to protect them from being scented like that.

Finally, the silence passes companionable and falls straight into awkward.

Matt is almost glad to hear a scream two blocks away, and he launches into action.

* * *

The next time Matt sees Spider-man he smells slightly fainter, like they’ve been trying to muffle Spider-man’s scent with more technology. It’s almost endearing, how hard he’s trying to cover everything over. Matt shakes his head, before landing on the other side of the roof with a roll.

He brushes himself off, noting that Spider-man is too busy watching someone to do more than wave a hand in his direction.

“Spidey,” Matt says, joining the smaller super-hero in his vigil. “Who are you watching?” His voice is gruff, and he needn’t press the pup thing yet. No need to do that while he’s just doing surveillance.

“That man, down there.” He points, and Matt resigns himself to trying to work it out.

“What’s the connection?” Matt presses, since maybe some background will give him information.

Spider-man hums, as if debating what to share. “Supplies drug dealers around Queens, and probably across the five boroughs in general.”

Matt pauses, carefully sniffs the air, and is almost bowled over by the fucking bakery smell again. He needs to be closer, and also further away from Spider-man to get more of a hint. He doesn’t know what he was thinking, trying to scent someone from all the way over here.

“What drugs? Connections to the Chinese? Connections to any of the gangs for that matter.”

Spider-man pauses, suddenly starting to fidget now that he’s no longer hyper focused on one person. “Dude, he _is_ Chinese, can’t you see from here?”

Matt tries very hard not to smack him upside the head.

“The Chinese blind the couriers in their drug operations. Looking Chinese doesn’t mean they’re involved with the Chinese.” Matt is starting to listen though, hoping to catch a hint of some language or other from where they are. “You’re still young, pup.”

Suddenly, Spider-man stills, and the apparent narrowing of the lenses in his mask gives Matt the impression that he’s glaring hard. “How did you smell me the other night?”

Matt, for what it’s worth, debates the answer he’d give as the suave lawyer most people see daily. In the end, he’s decidedly unhelpful. “Same way I do tonight.”

Spider-man twitches.

“You smell like you rolled around in a bakery,” Matt informs him, furrowing his brows behind his mask as he hears the lilt of Russian from down below. “Tell Captain America to keep his apple pie to himself next time.”

There’s a really embarrassed marshmallow scent, and if Matt was anything less than professional, he’d be grinning a shark’s grin. Instead, the man Spider-man’s been surveilling gets up, still talking Russian into his phone. It’s a sudden distraction, and it works.

“He’s working with the Russians. Don’t get involved.”

Spider-man jolts. “What! Man, I have to! They’re in Queens and I gotta—“ He’s interrupted by Matt whirling on him, stalking like the predatory alpha he is. He knows it’s unfair to play into that instinctual fear response omegas have to him, but it’ll keep the kid out of it.

“How much experience with organised crime? Not just some weirdo super-villain of the week, not some Avenger’s threat, just the guys who shoot first, ask questions later?”

The pup swallows heavily, shrinking back.

“Yeah, I thought as much. Stay out of it.”

Just as he wheels to jump off the roof, Matt becomes aware of that chemistry lab smell suddenly getting stronger, and his feet are stuck fast to the roof by that wickedly sticky synthetic compound, and he’s surprised that for all his senses, he failed to anticipate how fast the kid could move.

“Let me tag along. I’ll stay out your way, I’ll be back up. If no one _gives_ me the experience, how am I going to handle it on my own?”

Matt closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath, focusing on his own thundering heartbeat, lets his scent charcoal and burn, but still the kid, no matter how close he seems to be to cringing into full submissive omega pose, holds his place.

“Fine.” Matt’s voice is gritted between his teeth. “Leave if I tell you to.”

It takes mere moments for Spider-man to release him. He’s incredibly strong, ripping through the tacky webbing as if it were silk threads. Matt takes off like a bat out of hell, racing across rooftops, leading the way. The pup keeps up, bounding along as if it were nothing. Matt’s leading them towards a chop-shop over by pier 88 when paprika clings to his nose. He changes his route slightly, landing beside Deadpool on top of a building on 49th.

“I thought you said your contract was done.”

Deadpool seemed to spin a card between his fingers. “Been over the Hellhouse, picked up another.” Spider-man is peeking over the edge of the building, Matt can hear the lenses focusing and refocusing in fascination.

“Any ties to the chop-shop?”

Matt is usually not interested in the functioning of Deadpool’s job. He avoids it where possible, plausible deniability. Deadpool knows this, and his voice is so gleeful, full of delight that Matt would even have a passing interest. “Wouldn’t tell you if it did have any, Red, you got a squeaky clean reputation to uphold!”

Matt would love to talk to Deadpool about how soaked in red his reputation is that the blood will probably never come out, but Deadpool is a mercenary, one of the best, and his reputation gushes blood and gore and ashes. Matt hears a small snort from the side of the roof, and a squeak as Deadpool turns that way.

“Aww, Red! You brought me a present! Webs, baby boy!” Deadpool is already starting that way, startling the omega. Matt has to grab hold of that gross leather outfit that creaks gently with every step, and hold on.

“Back the fuck off, Wade.” Matt knows Deadpool is in a good mood, so luckily this just results in the other alpha sagging and trying to pout through that mask that really needs a wash.

“Aww, hornhead, I just want a little snuggle!” Matt tightens his grasp.

“You, me, Russians. Don’t kill ‘em. The kid stays _out_ of it.”

That gets a reaction from the little shit. “Hey!” he protests.

“Listen, I’m not getting a blaster to the face because _Tony Stark_ thought I _let_ you go running in there.”

It’s reasonable, Matt thinks, that the kid cocks his head to one side. He seems to be considering the fact that Matt just basically said he’s covering his own back. For once, Deadpool is blissfully silent while someone else thinks, and Matt has a moment to start making his mental map of the area, judging the best route in and out.

It doesn’t last long, because the pup seems to be fucking _suicidal_ and launches himself off the edge of the roof and towards the chop shop.

Matt is glad he has more control than most alphas he knows. He’s glad that this stupid omega isn’t his. He vibrates with sudden tension, and launches after Spider-man. Deadpool, who may very well be _actually_ suicidal, follows with a horrific crunch as he launches off the roof. Great, now Matt has to listen to the fucker heal and speedrunning healing is something he hopes none of the other heroes have to listen to. And Spider-man might be _fast_ but he’s not got the mental map Matt has, hasn’t got the senses Matt relies on to find the freakishly slow, freakishly heavy heartbeat.

Fucking Mutants.

Matt catches the edge of the fire escape, trying to find the open window the pup just snuck through. He can sense the heartbeat on the roof, which must be the Spider-kid, can hear the Russian mumbling through the building. Heavy rock plays from a cab of a truck they’re probably dismantling, and the sound reverberates through the building. It helps, a little, like echo-location. He can work out where everything is, understand where the people are, multiple heartbeats lighting up the space. He can hear Spider-man whispering to Karen again, hear the soft feminine murmur in his ears. Just as Matt is becoming hopeful that Spider-man won’t do anything stupid, the pup drops from the ceiling. Straight on top of someone. The second the first gun is fired, Deadpool busts through the doors, guns held high and Matt—well, Matt just resigns himself to trying to get Spider-man out the building.

It’s fierce but it’s quick. Spider-man is enhanced, Deadpool rips through targets, knocking out as many as he can, but stray bullets still sometimes rip through torsos. Matt catches one who scents like drugs, meth and heroin and weed. The smell of menthols is all over him, and Matt shudders at the tobacco that clings to his clothes. It’s short work to pin him, threaten him with Deadpool, who is currently _singing_ , and the man sings like a canary. Within minutes, Matt knows the location of the drop centre for Queens, and knows he can easily trace back any couriers.

But once the dust has settled, once the unusual quiet settles over everything, Matt fixes his focus on Spider-man. The pup is cocky, and Matt bares his teeth, snarling, only keeping the barest pieces of his rage tightly lashed. He floods the space with burnt cherry scent, allows his _anger/frustration/rage_ to leach through. Spider-man’s lenses widen, adjust, and even Deadpool steps back. There’s the weird healing flesh sounds coming from his direction, and Matt is so glad that the intensity of his emotions make the sound fall beneath his attention.

“Ooooh, Webs, you’re in for it now!” Deadpool crows, and whilst normally Matt would snap, tell him he’s being unhelpful, it’s exactly what he needs to provoke a response. Spider-man, for all his bravado up to about two seconds ago, dips his head. He falls into a submissive stance, and Matt stops his stalking.

“What the _fuck_ was that?” His rage is simmering, and Matt is very carefully tugging on threads to start pulling himself back together, after he has intimidated this kid. Matt isn’t tall, he knows, not like Deadpool and his sheer height and bulk. He makes up for it by being _the_ Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. “You endangered my life and yours-“ Deadpool starts to make a noise and Matt points at him angrily. It’s enough to shut him up. “-Just so you could make a fucking _point_.”

Spider-man is letting out a small whine, and Matt is unaffected. Deadpool, on the other hand, is making ridiculous sounds that correlate to how cute he is. Matt thinks that’s what they are, anyway. “Don’t let me catch you in the Kitchen until you’ve stopped trying to fucking _prove_ something. Go home, pup. Go.”

The kid hightails it, out of a window he came in, and Matt closes his eyes, frustration lighting up his nerves. Deadpool is quiet, watching Spider-man leave. He’s probably soaked in the burnt cherries scent now, because Matt has been outputting a lot of that in his anger. He probably smells of Deadpool, the suit fibres soaking up that horrendous paprika and gasoline combination.

“I will _sue_ Stark for child endangerment,” Matt grits out, to the quiet air. There appears to be silent approval from Deadpool, and Matt turns to leave, only pausing at the fire escape to address his next words to the other alpha. “Get out the Kitchen.”

There’s nothing more to say, and Matt carefully refuses to listen as he leaves, running fast to get back into the maze of flat rooftops and fire escapes that he knows well. He very carefully doesn’t hear the next three gunshots that he knows will come from the chop shop, as Deadpool collects his bounty. Turning a blind eye, and all that.

He knows where to turn next, landing on Foggy’s roof, and Matt smiles as the sea air scent hits his nose.


End file.
